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Gov. Tom Wolf proposed 2018-19 state budget avoids hiking state income and sales taxes but spends about 3.1 percent more than the current fiscal year. Here are the winners and losers in the $32.9 billion spending plan, that was announced Tuesday.

WINNERS

• Anyone who buys anything subject to the state sales tax and anyone who works for a living. The sales tax will remain 6 percent and the income tax 3.07 percent. Wolf, a Democrat, proposed raising both in previous budgets, including swapping higher taxes would generate for lower school property taxes and boosting education funding. The Republican-controlled General Assembly has repeatedly rejected raising either. Facing re-election this year, Wolf likely didn’t want to look like a tax-and-spender.

• Anyone who earns the minimum wage, which in Pennsylvania remains the federally mandated $7.25 an hour. The governor proposes a $12 an hour minimum wage. The idea never went anywhere when Wolf proposed it before, but more than 30 states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum.

• Students in public schools and state colleges. The governor proposes $225 million for pre-school, public and technical schools and the state’s higher education system.

• Job seekers. Wolf wants to spend $50 million on a new initiative meant to match worker training with available jobs.

• Corporations that actually pay the state corporate tax rate. Wolf wants to reduce the tax to 7.99 percent by 2023 partly by eliminating the “Delaware loophole” by next Jan. 1. The loophole allows corporations to avoid the state corporate tax by lumping revenue generated in Pennsylvania with revenue produced in states with lower income taxes and paying the tax of the lower-tax state. Gov. Ed Rendell proposed this repeatedly, but the General Assembly has never gone along.

• State police. Wolf wants to boost their ranks by 100 with four new cadet classes. He also wants to spend $6 million to get some of them body cameras.

• People with intellectual disabilities and autism. Wolf wants $74 million more for services for them.

• Low-income, working parents. The governor wants

$25 million more so they can pay for day care.

• Victims of sexual misconduct. Wolf wants almost $600,000 more for the state Human Relations Commission to support victims.

• Municipalities that own bridges. Wolf wants $10 million more to fix their bridges.

• Fruit farmers. The governor proposes spending almost $1.6 million to wipe out infestations of spotted lanterflies, insects that threaten the state’s grape, fruit and hardwood trees.

LOSERS

• Natural gas drilling companies. The governor proposes a price-based extraction, or severance, tax. The tax would range from 4 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas if the price is up to $3 per thousand cubic feet to 7 cents if the price hits $6 or more. The tax resembles one that emerged from the House Finance Committee last fall and another that the Senate passed last July.

• People who live in municipalities that don’t have their own police forces. The governor proposes charging the municipalities $25 per resident to train four state police cadet classes and increase the number of state troopers by 100. The state General Assembly never acted when Wolf proposed the fee last year.

• Potentially, some people who work for the state Department of Health or Department of Human Services. Wolf proposes combining them and that could result in early retirement or layoffs.

• Agricultural and hardwoods researchers, food marketers and promoters of dairy and livestock shows. Wolf proposes eliminating all their funding to save almost $4.7 million.

• Regional cancer institutes, poison control centers and civil air patrol. Wolf wants to eliminate their funding, but past proposals to do that failed.

Contact the writer:

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9147

@BorysBlogTT

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